Today's News

By Jack Brammer
Lexington Herald Leader
In the driveway of a small, red-brick house on winding Alton Station Road in rural Anderson County sits a 2007 Lincoln Town Car. Its license plate reads “ITS-ABE.”
A nearby farm truck on the property has a plate that reads “ITS-ABE2.”
Inside the house stirs the owner of the vehicles, Jim Sayre, 78.
Take a quick look at him, and the inscriptions on the license plates suddenly make sense.

Column as I see ’em …
I sometimes feel like Al Pacino in the third (and worst) “Godfather” movie. You know, the one where aging mafia Michael Corleone boss laments, “Every time I try to get out, they pull me back in.”

Since I started writing opinion columns for The Anderson News, I spend the last week of the year ripping those same columns to shreds.
I retroactively go over the sentences I loved writing and the people that inspired them. The ill-conceived, awkward sentence constructions I wish died on the keyboard as I typed them. The brilliant, sophisticated prose I dreamed only after our Monday deadline.
I don’t mentally review every single one of the nearly 52 columns I wrote in 2013.

Like a lot of other people, when the New Year rolls around, I make several resolutions. And like a lot of other people, by the time February rolls around, I give up on most of them. Sometimes I give up because I don’t really intend to get a second job or clean my house more often, anyway. But other times, I give up because I don’t have what I need to reach my goal.

Happy New Year. The year 2014 is upon us. No one knows what our futures will bring. Kind of exciting, when you think about it. It’s like going to a surprise movie. You never know what you’ll experience.
We can plan and organize all we want, but life is going to happen and directions may change. People will come and go in our lives. Events will change our hearts. Inventions and trends will lead the way to the future. I’d say that’s pretty exciting.

“Whisky Advocate” recently named Four Roses’ 2013 Limited Edition 125th Anniversary Small Batch Bourbon its choice for “American Whiskey of the Year,” according to a news release.
Four Roses Master Distiller Jim Rutledge personally chose three of Four Roses’ 10 unique bourbon recipes to create the new barrel strength, small batch bourbon.

Life stopped on May 3 as Lawrenceburg residents looked up in awe, fear and disbelief.
Above them was an enormous cloud of black smoke, towering over their streets and homes, intermittently blocking out the sun and prompting people from as far away as Lexington, Frankfort, Georgetown and Nicholasville to say, nearly in unison, “What in the heck is burning?”
The short answer was a gigantic pile of a vinyl material used to bind automotive glass and prevent it from shattering.

Are you ready to retire? Even if retirement is many years away, it still is a good idea to annually review your plans and see if you are making progress.
Talk to a retirement counselor at work if you are within 10 years from retirement. A one-hour conversation now may help you make financial decisions that will benefit you later.

The Anderson Public Library joined several northern Kentucky libraries getting sued in 2013 by taxpayers that claim the special taxing districts had been collecting tax revenue illegally for decades.
The suit, filed by Lawrenceburg resident Harold Todd in Anderson County Circuit Court on behalf of taxpayers in May, mirrored three suits filed against northern Kentucky libraries in Kenton, Campbell and Boone counties.